


The Widow's Game

by La Reine Noire (lareinenoire)



Category: 15th Century CE RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/pseuds/La%20Reine%20Noire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was not difficult to imagine being married to Richard. In fact, that was the problem; it was far too easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Widow's Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oshun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oshun/gifts).



> I hate Philippa Gregory and all her works, so I hope this is a nice antidote! Many thanks to my dear, dear beta-readers. All errors are my own.

_Gloucestershire_

_May 1471_

 

Queen Margaret had not spoken a word in two days. Nor had she moved of her own accord--two of her ladies had dressed her like a doll each morning. All the while, her eyes were fixed on the southernmost window, toward Tewkesbury, where her son had died, and with him all the hopes of the House of Lancaster.

 

The queen’s ladies thought her heartless, Anne knew. They whispered between themselves of their lady’s--no, of _Madame_ ’s--deep grief, her boundless sorrow for her son, all the while casting glances at Anne, doubly bereaved and dry-eyed. She had spent her tears already for a father hacked to pieces in the woods beside Barnet field. The first of all the sins was pride and, according to some, the over-proud earl of Warwick had been duly punished. Perhaps even King Edward believed it, though it was said he had wept to hear of the earl’s death.

 

Her husband’s death had been no less brutal, depending on who one asked. Some said he had died in the heat of the battle; others, that her brother-in-law the duke of Clarence cut him down as he begged for mercy after. The most fanciful claimed he had called King Edward traitor to his face and was stabbed forthwith for his presumption. Anne supposed her Edward would have appreciated the third story. Her father too.

 

“I suppose,” Queen Margaret said, her voice hoarse from disuse, “it is too much to ask that you are with child.”

 

Anne and Edward had not shared a bed since the disaster at Barnet--on Margaret’s orders, no less. She shook her head. Queen Margaret sighed. “Then it is truly over.”

 

She had fought for Lancaster as long as Anne had been alive--some might have argued even longer than that. Even when King Henry himself might have given up, it was his queen who had pushed him forward. King Henry, who was still a prisoner in the Tower of London. Margaret rarely spoke of him, as though he had been dead for years. It was in Edward that she had rested all her hopes.

 

She could feel the eyes of Margaret and her other ladies on her. No doubt they expected her to fall on her knees before the new king and declare herself a proud partisan of the House of York. If Anne had been her sister, it might even have worked. Isabel had a talent for perfectly timed tears that sat becomingly at the corners of her eyes instead of leaving blotches on her cheeks as Anne’s did. She couldn’t help but wonder if Isabel had employed them this time in pleading for her wayward husband, who had been guiltier than any in this great mess. Would she plead for Anne too?

 

She had no way of knowing, not until the king and his army arrived later this day. And so she waited by that same window, her eyes on the southern road, seeking the telltale cloud of dust that announced the arrival of an army.

 

With all her heart, she wished Isabel were here.

 

***

 

The king was a giant in his armour. Anne had forgotten that and gave an involuntary gasp when he rode into the courtyard. She glanced behind just in time to see the smirk fading from Queen Margaret’s face and glared for a second before turning back to the window. His squires must have been at work all night, for the king’s armour shone bright as a looking-glass beneath the afternoon sun. One of the three men accompanying him carried his helmet and Anne could not help but recollect the stories her father told of the battles they’d fought together, where the young duke of York had refused to wear a helmet. _He claimed it helped morale if the men could see his face. I reminded him of Harry the Fifth taking an arrow to the eye on Shrewsbury field and he reminded me that Shrewsbury was but the prologue to Agincourt. I couldn’t argue the point_. He had been speaking, she remembered, to the king’s younger brother.

 

And there he was, beside the king, as unlike him as chalk from cheese. Black hair hung in dripping locks around his narrow face and he shoved them back impatiently as the king laughed, presumably at something he had said. Richard had worshipped his elder brother like Arthur reborn when Anne knew him. It seemed an age since then, although in truth it had been but a few years. From what few conversations she had been permitted to overhear, he had become the king’s shadow since following him to Burgundy; indeed, one might even say he had taken the coveted place once held by Anne’s father.

 

The men lingered in the courtyard, their laughter echoing strangely in this silent house of women. The king’s hair gleamed like beaten gold. Isabel had fancied herself in love with him once, but Clarence seemed a reasonable enough substitute and Isabel had a talent for ignoring faults in those she loved--Anne was evidence enough of that.

 

It was only a matter of time, however, and Anne stayed where she was even as Queen Margaret arranged herself in the convent’s finest chair, her ladies flanking her. Though she was still, in name, Duchess of Lancaster, Queen Margaret had made it clear that Anne had no place in that gathering.

 

The man sent to bring them to the king was closer in age to Anne’s father than to her. Queen Margaret frowned even after the guard announced him as William Lord Hastings. “I’m to escort you to the king, my lady.”

 

Not _Your Grace_. It was firm, but Anne supposed it kind in its own way. Queen Margaret did not react beyond giving him her arm and a frosty glance before they departed. Her ladies followed at a nod from her. She deliberately avoided Anne’s eyes and Anne held her breath until the last of Margaret’s ladies had disappeared into the corridor beyond.

 

She sank onto the windowsill with a shuddering breath. That was her first hurdle cleared; her cause depended on her ability to separate herself from Queen Margaret, and her mother-by-marriage had cut her loose of her own accord. Rather to Anne’s surprise, she owed Margaret a debt of gratitude.

 

“My lady of Lancaster.” Her heart jumped into her throat and she lurched forward awkwardly into a half-curtsey at the sight of the man in the doorway. “I’ve startled you.”

 

“My lord of Gloucester,” she replied, eyes on the floor and knees screaming as she held her position. “I pray you pardon me.”

 

“You look...well.”

 

Anne bit her lip to stifle a most inconvenient desire to laugh. “I see your compliments haven’t improved.” When she glanced up at him, she realised his cheeks had gone red. Unable to meet her eyes, he raised her to her feet and the silence stretched uncomfortably. “You’re wounded,” she suddenly realised, noticing the bandage wrapped around his left arm.

 

“At Barnet, yes. It’s nothing serious. They tell me it should be right as rain in a few weeks’ time. Not,” he added under his breath, “that that matters to you, I’m sure.”

 

“Of course it matters,” protested Anne. As she looked down, however, she saw the red rose of Lancaster enamelled on the pomander at her waist. She lifted it and the scent of cinnamon and ambergris drifted out. “I never asked to marry Edward of Lancaster. The plan was my father’s, not mine.”

 

“Your father is...”

 

“Dead. I’ve been told.” She turned aside, blinking away the unexpected tears. “He wasn’t the one who...?”

 

“No,” he said quickly. “I didn’t see him until after...until it was too late.”

 

“Too late,” echoed Anne with a bitter laugh. “Anyone would think you wished him alive.”

 

“I do.” She turned to look at him, but he was gazing past her at the window. “The king offered him a pardon on the night before the battle. We knew he wouldn’t take it.” Anne bowed her head. Of course her father would never have taken a pardon. “But we hoped. We thought, perhaps, he might think of someone other than himself.”

 

Anne’s laughter cracked on the edge of a sob. “That would ask too much of him, wouldn’t it?”

 

“Anne, I am so sorry.” He reached out and stopped halfway to her arm. Anne did not move, dabbing at her eyes instead with her handkerchief. “You also know, I assume, of your husband.”

 

Anne nodded. “I do. God rest him.”  Richard was frowning at her, and she couldn’t help smiling a little. “What did you expect?”

 

“Did you love him?”

 

“What sort of lunatic question is that? I hardly knew Edward. I married him, ay, for my father’s sake. I saw what he asked of you, Dickon; do you honestly believe he demanded any less from me?” Edward had paid little mind to her in their brief months of marriage, too caught up in his grand plans to rule England. “How can you not hate the sight of me, knowing how many lives my father’s actions have cost?”

 

“You are not your father, Anne.”

 

“No, indeed,” she replied, a smile spreading like poison across her face. “What I am is my father’s money and my mother’s lands.”

 

Richard eyed her. “And what am I but protection? Who will fight for your inheritance, Anne? Certainly not your sister and dearest George.”

 

“I’d sooner trust a snake than George.”

 

“On that we agree, at least.” He finally reached for her hand, too quickly for Anne to draw away. “Anne, please. I don’t want to fight you.”

 

“You may be the only one,” she admitted. His hand was knotted with scars, the souvenir of years of training. His shoulders still hunched forward--no amount of her mother’s scolding could overcome that--but the last of the roundness had dropped from his cheeks in exile. He would never be the equal of either of his brothers in looks, but Anne was no different compared to Isabel. It had been the root of their friendship. “I just want to be left in peace, Richard.” The childhood nickname had slipped out earlier but no longer seemed to apply to the man standing before her now.

 

“As you wish, Anne. But you should think of your future instead of burying it with the dead.” Turning on his heel, he left her. Anne let go of the pomander and found marks where it had pressed hard into her skin.

 

It was not difficult to imagine being married to Richard. In fact, that was the problem; it was far too easy.

 

She’d not thought of him at all in their panicked flight from England and the horror of Isabel’s stillbirth on board the _Grace Dieu_ as it pitched and roiled within sight of Calais. A poor friend it made her, perhaps, but Richard had only come to mind when word arrived of King Edward’s flight, and that one of the few in his ragged train was his youngest brother.

 

She realised in retrospect that the Lancastrian captains had spoken of him all the time. The duke of Gloucester, King Edward’s dangerous younger brother whose vanguard had turned the tide of the battle of Barnet and brought about her father’s death. It was not his fault. _Any man who goes into battle must face the fact that he may not return_ , her mother had told her as they watched the earl of Warwick’s standard disappear along the road from Amboise. _But, Anne, this is the first time_ I _have feared that he might not return_.

 

Her mother had entered sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey; that much she had managed to discover from the various messengers bringing news to Queen Margaret during their panicked flight to Tewkesbury. Isabel was in London, but with Isabel came George of Clarence, in whose face Anne would have sooner spit than smiled. It wasn’t her sister’s fault that her husband was a knave.

 

Not that Anne had done very much better. Her husband had been tolerable enough in the few snatched moments she’d spent alone with him, but he’d thought of little more than regaining his lost throne and pleasing his mother. What he would have done with that throne would remain a mystery evermore. What mattered more was her fate.

 

Perhaps the king would marry her off. She would inherit half of the Beauchamp lands on her mother’s death, no matter what her father had done, unless the king chose to attaint the countess of Warwick for treason alongside her husband. And if King Edward truly repented of her father’s death, surely he would not punish his family.

 

If she married Richard, she would be the second lady in the land. Never mind that George was the elder; the king could never truly forgive him, no matter how many prodigal returns he made. Or so she thought until she arrived at Crosby Place and found her father’s banners pulled down and replaced with Clarence’s arms. It shouldn’t have surprised her, but she found herself swallowing her tears.

 

No, there was little enough in this new world for her unless she snatched it for herself. When she had her first moments to herself in her chamber, she penned a letter and sent it with a silver penny and orders that it be given to the duke of Gloucester and none other.

 

Sometimes a lady needed to take matters into her own hands.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Widow's Game [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9162805) by [adistantsun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adistantsun/pseuds/adistantsun)




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